Goodbye Lady and Dumbo

Last month I posted about how the poor old cow (Lady) we borrowed from our neighbour had unexpectedly had a calf who we named Dumbo because of her huge ears.

Lady was very old and after having Dumbo she was not in very good condition or producing much milk.  We fed her up on good grass and hay and she managed to regain some weight but the milk situation was still not good.

Dumbo was growing but it was only a matter of time before she would need far more milk than Lady could provide.

So we called our neighbour who owned her and raised our concerns.  He told us that he had another cow with a calf who had plenty of milk and he would put Dumbo with her.

Lady is really old and the reality is that once the other cow accepts Dumbo as her own lady will have no further use and probably be killed.  This may sound harsh and mean, but if she is not capable of raising a calf then she has no value to a farmer.  If she was ours and had given us years of good service then we would let her live out her life in peace.  But she is not ours and for us the right thing to do was to make sure the calf had the best chance possible.  Sadly that meant saying goodbye to them.

So we arranged for him to come down and collect Lady and Dumbo and so that our cow still had a companion he brought us back a little steer.

A bit blury and from a long distance but
Lady and Dumbo are on their way to their new home.

We haven't given him a name yet and he is still very weary of us but a bit of hand feeding should calm him down.